Deriaz's Armory (Cubone and Apple - 4/12)
page 11

I think it’s a very good digital piece, dude. The only thing I can say is the lines are a bit sketchy, but the colouring and lighting seems fine to me. If you just keep on doing stuff, I’m sure you’ll not doubt your own skills as much. And if you’re unsure about what you’re doing with digital stuff, there’s loads of good tutorials on Photoshop and whatnot on YouTube, or maybe I’m reading that wrong.

I have the shakiest hand, and digital work is like, “Hey, bro. Lemme just magnify that for ya. Theeeere ya go, doesn’t that look, uh, better?” I’m getting better with it than I was when I messed around with it years ago, doing doodles and stuff, but maaaaan they’re shaky.

The color might just be looking at the contrast between the Korvaan icon I did (I’m using now) and Xerant here, and how huge a difference they are. But the lighting is. . . Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the glow making it feel strange, but I feel like it’s all over the place. I couldn’t figure out how to fix it.

It’s partly that I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve been messing around with CTRL-Paint’s tutorials every once in a while, but I think it’s more a conflict of interest, because I don’t know what I want to do with digital stuff. I’ve seen highly photo-realistic things that would be crazy fun to do, and that super stylized and colorful things that look crazy fun to do. I don’t know which one I want to head towards and try to achieve years and years down the line. It’s like I’m learning to draw all over again (though some may argue I’m still learning how to draw, and I agree, so it’s like it’s being multiplied. Heh.).

Nobody on Jon’s blog (the Art Order) will laugh at you, or make fun of you, or tell you that the best way to improve art is to do something besides art. (Incidentally, I was told by a senior graphic designer, years ago, that maybe a career in graphic design wasn’t for me. I’ve never forgotten it.)

It really doesn’t bother me that you have a lot of character studies from games and stuff. It’s just that you’re drawing well enough, I think, that you could be more flexible and it would be interesting.

And, you know, when you have a comfortable foundation of the physical act of drawing, (hand-eye coordination, etc.), the challenge is not HOW to draw but rather WHAT to draw. That’s why it’s good exercise to challenge yourself with things beyond your central interests.

Whenever I want to feel like I can’t draw at all, I try to draw pine trees. They are difficult, and they’re not pretty, so even when you get them more or less accurately, it looks terrible.

Finding things to draw is a constant challenge. I suspect that most sketch artists consider it a real barrier to drawing; the “obstacle” is not finding something to draw. (There’s stuff to draw all around you.) The “trick” is to find something to draw that’s interesting enough to you to make the drawing fun and worthwhile.

The problem with this scenario is, of course, that we haven’t even picked up a pencil yet and we already have expectations. That’s bad. Drawing shouldn’t be a destination… you’re not making a drawing. It should be an action… an exercise. Drawing is more like playing a guitar than writing music. Treat “drawing” like a verb instead of a noun and I bet you’ll find plenty of things, people, and spaces to depict.

I think I’m still confused by your friend’s blog — every article has closed comments, and it doesn’t look like there’s anywhere to submit things for critique? But going to “community” leads to some place called “Wip nation”, which seems to have an abundant amount of people uploading things, but I haven’t noticed many people critiquing. But is that part of your friend’s blog, even though it seems like another site, or am I missing something? :S Sorry if it’s obvious. (Similarly, I had my father tell me “You can’t draw for shit, don’t waste your time” years ago in a restaurant when I told my parents I wanted to go to an art college. He didn’t say it very quietly, either. Textbook example of a flashbulb memory right there for me.)

Eh. I don’t know that I agree when you say “you’re drawing well enough”. If I’m so varied that some things look good and you wonder where my eyes are at other times, to me, that’s terrible. I can’t even begin to say I’m decent if I can’t be consistent. Maybe that’s extremely pessimistic, but being wildly inconsistent won’t get me anywhere in the future if I can’t get over that hurdle. I just don’t know how.

Drawing has always been both an action AND a destination in my mind. I don’t think I can get past that. It’s an action where I’m constantly learning and doing, but it’s a destination because I want to make things FOR people. I want to do something with it. Just drawing for the sake of drawing is nice, and I have a lot of fun with it, but if I can’t get to a skill level where I’ll be useful to someone, then to me, I feel like I’ve only wasted my time. (Having student loan debt backing this up doesn’t help me break that train of thought any time soon, I fear.)

I’ll keep going with it and do more studies and stuff, but. . . I don’t know. I’m struggling here to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing, because I feel like I’m doing something horribly wrong. (I should clarify, that train of thought isn’t because of what you said. I’ve been wanting to say this stuff for a while now. Hopefully this doesn’t come off looking like I don’t truly appreciate you wanting to help me. :x)

Art Order is not so much a community as a place for professional artists to check in. I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the language and expectations put on the professional fantasy illustrator. From time to time they have challenges. (The latest one is to submit a video tutorial of something that you do well, artistically.)

I think that most of the stuff you’re seeing on the public side and in the gallery is juried. I know that there are LOTS of people that participate on that site that are at our level of finish. I actually don’t participate on Art Order. (I spend some time hanging out at Brand New; a branding/marketing site created by some of the folks at Pentagram Studios.)

You are presenting a wide range of things. There are some things that I think are terrific, innovative, and confident… then some things feel a bit stiff and unsure.

When I said, “you’re drawing well enough,” I meant that you’re drawing at a level of proficiency that it should be easy and fun to simply draw. You might be in a place still where you’re thinking about your audience’s response WHILE you’re drawing, (ego getting in the way of experimentation), but eventually you should be churning out all kinds of stuff that isn’t character-driven.

I think I’m going to eventually dive into the Concept-Art place. I’ve been lurking around there for the past week or two — I think the homepage is what intimidates me. Being able to just click a small icon and see, “Oh, this guy created Spectacular Spiderman. . .” is pretty scary. But then I go to the forums and it’s filled with people who are so varied in skill level it’s crazy. So I think so long as I’m just being honest, I really don’t have anything to worry about. I’d like to finish what I’m working on now (and am showing a rough thing below of), though, before I do it. But I’ma do it. I promise. I want more of that there critiques. (Also, those Character Of The Week threads look hellishly fun to do. Didn’t see an “Environment” of the week, but maybe I missed it. That would be fun to do too.)

I don’t know what I’m doing so far with this one. I’ve been having fun doodling and doing rough stuff with it, but I think I need to knuckle down and start refining it. I want a background behind it, too, so I’m going to need to mock up one of those real fast, and then start refining that. I’m torn between something lineless (I’ve been captivated by the concept art for Guild Wars 2 I’ve been seeing around), or something with line and smooth color and everything. But I guess it’s silly to be thinking about that sort of stuff when I’m only at this stage, and I should just let it happen, eh?

Anyways, feel free to critique this. I used a few references (dog skull, woman slightly hunched over [I exaggerated her step and the angles of her arms a bit]), but I think I might need to go back to them. The legs, especially. If I could name one problem that’s been bothering me, it’s those legs. But if you have anything to say regarding the lighting, or the linework, or whatever, feel free to shout it out.

Well I just skimmed through your posts for the past…oh hour and a half or so, and man have you come a long way! Fantastic work, I’m horrid with the figures but man you can really nail them. Keep it up, don’t give up hope!

I don’t know how I missed this earlier but the dog-skull character is turning out great, I think! There are some things I really like about it.

1. Building up a value map that firmly establishes your lightest areas and your darkest areas is a great way of modeling the form in a consistent way. It’s the smart way to color. With your value map in place, all you really have to do is clean it up and you’re practically done.

2. Your pencil work is brilliant. Drawing loose and fast helps make the form come to life. The sketch captures the gesture and I totally get what’s going on with her body.

4. There are some things with the line-work that I like, and some things I don’t care for. It’s kind of hard to describe. In some places you seem to use two line weights; a 1 pt brush for the outer contour, (like in the skull mask), and a .5 pt brush for the interior modeling. This is a common technique in technical illustration and “airplane evacuation”-style diagrams… the better ones, at least. You see them a lot these days in magazines but they used to be somewhat rare.

Unfortunately, your line weights aren’t treated methodically. The weight used in her belt is heavy, while the weight used to shape her torso is light. I’d invert this relationship so that all of the outer, “important” contours were the thicker line weight and all of the interior ones were thinner.

You might try following a rule for this. Let’s say you want to use 3 different line weights.

The thickest line weight will be reserved for the entire outer contour and will separate the character and her things from her surroundings.

The medium line weight will be used for all of the substantial contours within the model. One medium contour line will be used to isolate the mask, another for the outer edge of the robe, one for the belt, her pauldron, and one around each of her weapons. You won’t use the medium line on her gloves because they don’t significantly advance the story.

The lightest line weight will be used to indicate folds, cracks, and edges within the forms. These lines should not be used to establish texture.

After you do your value map (on one layer) and your linework (on another), when you combine them it will look great.

Another interesting consideration is how detail is used to drag the viewer’s eye around the illustration. Clearly, the mask is the most interesting part of the character. However, there’s a lot of detail put into her belt, scarf, and pauldron. This either adds to the story or detracts from it, depending on what you’re trying to depict. For example, if these four competing areas were styled in a way where the forms reflected each other, it would help build a unified story. Currently, however, the scarf isn’t doing much and the belt isn’t doing anything at all except maybe help form her hips. The only thing that’s trying to help is the pauldron… and it seems like flame or horns but it’s a terrific opportunity to underscore who she is and what kind of vibe she’s kicking.

Finally, this piece explores an interesting space in fantasy illustration; the juxtaposition of sexuality and threat. It’s not super new territory, but it’s still interesting. Her “threat” is made moreso by the fact that she’s a woman. It’s like, “red is normally red, but it’s ESPECIALLY red when it’s not on a red background.” There’s some dichotomy going on that you are handling subtly, and I like that. (She’s not all like “I’m a one-boob-hanging-out killer!”)

Well I just skimmed through your posts for the past…oh hour and a half or so, and man have you come a long way! Fantastic work, I’m horrid with the figures but man you can really nail them. Keep it up, don’t give up hope!

I don’t think I’ll give up hope any time soon, but man if it isn’t disheartening and morale-killing sometimes (example: what will be at the end of this post). Like, I know what I want to do in my head, but I just don’t know how to get it out on paper. Need more practice. :|

have you ever done any classical drawings. those are always my favorite to draw. any ways you have some great work really love the assasins creed lizard. your form is great too.

oh one more thing remember those robots on page one I loved em so much i tried one but pixel version

(Snip to save a little bit of bandwidth on other users/Kong.)

I drew this when I first learned about pixel art. oh and one last thing, what college do you go to?

Props for being able to do pixel stuff at all. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it. I’ve tried, but it’s all been rubbish. Hah.

By classical, I’m not sure what you mean. Like, giant still life drawings/paintings? I’ve done a few, but never shown them because they were done years prior. They just aren’t good at this point, and I don’t think critiques on them would give me anything.

I’m currently attending the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, entering my fourth and final year.

Thanks!

Originally posted by petesahooligan:(Snip snip, just so this post isn’t huge. No offense intended, pete!)

I like the dog-skull character too, but I’ve semi-scrapped/put it on hold for right now. I want to finish it, but I’m no longer thrilled with the pose. And I’m trying to add backgrounds to things, so I’m struggling to place her in some sort of environment. I’m going to re-do it at some point with a full idea in mind, rather than piecing it as I go, I think.

I need to teach myself to use the value map more. I think that might be what wound up making what I’m submitting below. . . Not something I’m fond of anymore. Been hunting around trying to find out how other artists have used value maps, and I think I have a very rough idea. Going to have to try it myself more.

I love the sketch as well. That’s my favorite part. And I think I messed it up a bit in the linework, mostly for the reasons you pointed out. I was just throwing line weights around for the sake of line weights, and that. . . Well, that made it all stiff and weird and just confusing as all hell. I’ll refer back to your tips when I return to her, or else to another drawing/painting that can use them, since I’m not working on her right now. The only thing I’m not sure on is the thickest line weight around the entire outer contour — I know I was taught to do that in a technical drawing course, but then I’ve had other profs or students say a thick line ends up looking bad. Is there a middle-ground that you know of? I prefer the thick line myself, so maybe I just need to ignore people saying it doesn’t look good, since I like it, and that should be what matters. . .

I need to remove the belts, I think. They were added as a last minute detail, when really, I could have simply defined the little waistcloth better. The idea with the scarf was that it was supposed to be blood-stained, sort of to play off the dog skull and confuse the viewer a bit, maybe make them wonder if the blood got there just from combat, or for another reason. I hate the pauldron, looking back now. I was like, “Oh man, spikes are so cool.” But, uh, they don’t fit with the rest of the figure at all, and I think they’re fighting too much for attention. I think when I return to her, I’m going to go with a more standard pauldron, but maybe with some sort of chain/tribal hangings on it? Something to mirror the skull. I want most of the attention up near the skull/“head”, I guess.

As a final note, I really like the idea of armored females in fantasy. I think it’s overload from other art and video games where apparently a woman’s torso doesn’t need to be armored, but I really like an armor-clad warrior more than that. I really wanted to try and make something intimidating, maybe even slightly un-nerving, but I don’t know that I can with how she’s posed/structured right now. Going to need to figure out something.

I started with the background, as rawismojo knows. And I was pretty happy with it. I’m pretty thrilled as I feel like I have at least a foothold on how to do backgrounds, and now I just need to keep building. And, apart from the lava, I thought I did an. . . “Okay” job.

ANDTHEN I WENTANDDECIDED TO PAINTTHECHARACTER. Something went HORRIBLY, HORRIBLYWRONG. And I don’t know WHAT. I just don’t know what went wrong. . .

After literally 10 hours back and forth on this guy, I give up. I just don’t know what went wrong. This is. . . Not good. It’s not done, but I can’t bring myself to continue work on it.

Need to practice more. I thought I was ready for something like this, but I’m clearly not. Hmm.

There’s not much else left to say, so without further rambling. . .

EDIT: Just realized, I forgot the strings on the staff. Those blue orbs are supposed to be crystals hanging from the staff. But, uh. . . Yeah. Woo. Oh well. Whoops.

Ugh.

I mean.

Enjoy!

(Being honest here, despite my hatred, I’m happy I tried. I feel like I have an idea of what I want to do with this stuff now. Now I just need to. . . Y’know, get there. Perfect opportunity to use my favorite quote: “Dude, suckin’ at something is the first step to being sort of good at something.”)

Random side note: I’ll start putting my stuff up on Concept-Art once I have a bit bigger of a collection. That might mean I need to actually SAVE the landscape/figure studies I’m doing from now on, too. I don’t really have much to show, thinking on it.

Okay, I’ll tell you what… I’ll post a drawing that I’m working on right now that I completely screwed up. I’m committed to doing it proper, (it needs to be done), but my first attempt is a complete loss. It’s HARD to share stuff you’re not happy with. It takes balls.

I trust you’re doing your “painting” in Photoshop or Painter. Try this, and if it doesn’t toall make your dude standing on his ledge completely awesome, I’ll send you one of my original drawing (and I’ll pay for postage).

1. Print out your dude in black and white so that it fits on an 8.5×11 sheet of paper.
2. Tape the print-out onto the back of a sheet of tracing paper.
3. Using a thin felt-tip, (like a fine-point Sharpie), draw around the main forms of your guy. Include any hard edges, like folds and creases, but don’t mark any shadows or do any hatching. One line weight for everything.
4. After that’s done, go around the outer contour (staff too) so that the line weight is SLIGHTLY heavier. A little goes a long way.
5. Detach your printout and scan the line art.
6. Lay the scan onto your color file as a separate layer, (set to Multiply so the white disappears). Scale until it fits perfectly.
7. Colorize the layer if you like… maybe dark brown… and lower the opacity of the lineart layer if it seems too overt.

After writing that out, I started having doubts. You just never know, so WITHGREATAPOLOGIES I tried it myself. This is what I came up with.

I’m not confident that this “saved” it… it seems more about the linework now than about the color, so that’s not terrific. Probably a smaller pen for more delicate linework would be better. (I used a red fine-tip sharpie.)

Nah, psh, don’t sweat it. I’ve always had the opinion, “Do what you want with my stuff. If you use it elsewhere, please just credit me somehow.”

I like that a LOT, honestly. That looks great! I’ll definitely have to try what you said, see if I can get anywhere near the same result. I do like the tips, and I really want to save the piece as a whole. I think, though, a day or two away from it to clear my mind will help. Then I should be ready to tackle what you said, because I’m still feeling some animosity to what I’ve painted. Heh.

Thanks!

EDIT: Also, when you say “It seems more about linework”, that makes me think THAT was the problem. This started as a doodle on the bus, and I liked it enough that I was like, “This would look great with color!” Yet, as you can see, I went with lineless. People at NSCAD, and on the net, seem to enjoy my linework (when I get it right), so. . . I have no idea why I’m not playing to my strengths, so to speak. Maybe I need the lines. Maybe that would give me some sort of structure for getting color correct. . .

Oh, I keep forgetting something important that I thought was worth sharing. When I do portfolio reviews and critiques, one of the most common pieces of advice I give is to draw from life (best) or photographic models (second-best).

Your dog skull is a great demonstration of why this is important. It’s the fucking coolest part of that drawing and it resonates as “true.” I wish more people would do what you did; we’d have way more better artists running around.

Oh, I keep forgetting something important that I thought was worth sharing. When I do portfolio reviews and critiques, one of the most common pieces of advice I give is to draw from life (best) or photographic models (second-best).

Your dog skull is a great demonstration of why this is important. It’s the fucking coolest part of that drawing and it resonates as “true.” I wish more people would do what you did; we’d have way more better artists running around.

Yeah, I gotta do that more. Mostly life — the only exposure with that that I have is from NSCAD. Though, actually, maybe I should starting doing architectural sketches too. Hmm. . .

And thanks. Heh. I’m hoping eventually I’ll get to being one of those “better” artists, but for now, I’m happy with what I’m doing. I can’t complain. . . Well, I mean, except when something goes as badly as this did. But you’re awesome for giving me tips on how to fix it, so hopefully it can be saved. Haha.

We’ve done a few things like, “Do a drawing inspired by [classical artist here],” where we imitate their line weights or brush strokes or stuff like that. Only once have we been asked to recreate an exact thing they did, but that was in the first year courses I think, and we weren’t graded on it. We had to do it, but it was for our own benefit. (Which was cool, really. I copied an Annibale Caracci drawing, and really came to appreciate his linework.)

Other than that, nah. NSCAD focuses on the foundations of drawing. It’s generally frowned upon to use your own “style”, because all that does is stifle you. I agree with most of the reasoning that I’ve been given on that. They like us referencing the old masters and looking at Renaissance and stuff, but unless we seek it out ourselves in the later years, it won’t be brought up too often.

What sort of career path are you looking to go towards? or is it all still up in the air?

Right now, the “dream job” would be something in conceptual art/landscape/whatever, either for movies, video games, or comic books. Anything in that realm, really, is the ideal position that I’d LOVE to get my hands on. More realistically, I’m trying to broaden my skill set into digital mediums (Flash, Photoshop/SAI, Maya) in hopes for an animation or modelling job. Even more realistically, if it involves art, I’ll take it, whether it’s graphic design or advertising or whatever. I realize I have a ways to go to get to any of those, but I’m okay with that right now, since I’m still a student, and the digital realm is pretty much self-teaching with whatever critiques I can get.

Sounds like you have a level head the fact that you can be realistic about your skills and where you might be able to go at the moment but where you can go if you truly want it. Maybe we’ll see each other around the Graphic/Art Community…you know in real life haha.

I’ve told Deriaz several times that I liked this picture quite a bit. I think a few of you have seen it, but I’m posting it here to show what I did with his picture. It is really awesome that he’s encouraging people to play with his pictures, and I think it’d be awesome if people took advantage of that.

well classical focuses mainly on portraits and landscape 1 point perspective drawings.

oh god I’m out of graphite screw charcoal.

Oh, okay. I think I get what you’re saying now. Yeah, a lot of what NSCAD is is portraiture/figure drawing (with or without environment), at least in the courses I’ve taken. I haven’t touched painting too much, but we did a boatload of landscapes in that, either from life, from photograph, or through re-creation. They offer jewelry and fashion and graphic design, but the core of NSCAD is all about the traditional/classical. (Or, at least, it tries to be. The atmosphere feels like it’s slowly changing there, which makes for a lot of tension.)

And nooooo, don’t say that. I thought the same thing before college, but my whole first year we were forced to use charcoal. Compressed charcoal, the really dark and heavy stuff, is great for shadow, but I can’t stand doing a whole drawing with it. Go find yourself some willow charcoal — it makes things gorgeous without even trying, and you won’t even be aware of exactly how you did it at first. It’s a wonderful thing. You can do things in seconds with charcoal that would take your hours with a pencil. You need the compressed to give you the heavy shadow, unless the willow charcoal you find is a deep black, but trust me, it’s so good. The clean-up is worth the result. (Also, fill a sheet with charcoal, and do a drawing by erasing. Crazy good effect. Love it when I get the opportunity to do that in class, even if mine don’t look too good.)

you know alberta right? well I’ve volunteered alot at the art gallery of alberta. I may be going into college next year for the arts but I’m still really stuck wether I should go into architecture or the fine arts.

yes but doodling with charcoal sucks :P and I agree, I usually only have charcoal so I can do the shading with it.

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